It is well known that carnivorous animals such as dogs benefit greatly from chewing or masticating bones. Chewing on bones provides needed jaw exercise for domesticated dogs who are fed soft or wet food products for which little chewing action is required. Furthermore, bone chewing is believed to provide a cleaning effect to the teeth. Specifically, as a dog chews on a bone, the abrasion of the teeth against bone fragments on the outer surface of the bone performs this cleaning function.
There are many pet chews known in the art, including natural and synthetic animal bones, animal hooves, rawhide and the like. While these pet chews provide a dog with ample opportunity to exercise the jaw muscles and to clean portions of the teeth, there is a need for a type of pet chew that provides a dog with greater motivation to scrape its teeth, especially the lateral regions thereof, along the surface of a bone or bone-like material, thereby achieving an enhanced teeth cleaning effect. While the pet chews of the prior art fulfill their respective functions and objectives, they do not describe or suggest a pet chew having an inner bone or bone-like core and a tubular edible wrapper layer composed of viscera or other suitable food product, that motivates a dog to chew on the pet chew, thereby scraping its teeth along the surface of the bone-like core. To this end, the pet chew of the present invention provides a canine with greater motivation to scrape its teeth against the outer surface of the core. This motivation is accomplished by surrounding, in whole or in-part, the bone or bone-like core with a tubular edible wrapper layer composed of a tubular animal organ or other suitable food product, such as jerky extruded in tube-form. This outer edible wrapper layer has a highly desirable taste, which motivates the canine to remove this layer thereby scraping its teeth against the outer surface of the bone or bone-like core material.
Therefore, it can be appreciated that a need exists for a new, inexpensive, and easy-to-manufacture pet chew and method of making the same that provides enhanced teeth cleaning action for pets. The device and method of the present invention substantially fulfill this need.